Saturday, 8 September 2012

Also available digitally as well as in comic shops, the story centres on Fugitoid, a Mirage Studios character co-created by the founding fathers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

This comic Is a one-shot, released as the eighth issue of IDW's TMNT "Micro-Series" line written by Paul Allor and introduces Fugitoid to a new era of readers, the strong familial themes in his story and his personal connections to the TMNT. The adventure leads the new 'Fugitoid' to Earth, and stands to affect the Turtles’ future in an unexpected and crucial way.

The story serves to set up an upcoming TMNT ongoing story arc, and writer Paul Allor has nothing but praise for Paul McCaffrey's art.

"Paul does a really amazing job with action sequences," Allor told Comic Book Resources news. "He's able to make sure you know where everyone is, what's happening and what the stakes are for each character. He's a masterful storyteller in that regard.

"He's also fantastic at the character-acting part of the job," he added. "He's able to pick just the right body language, the right expression to tell you everything going on inside a character's mind. That's why one of my favorite moments was the scene... between Honeycutt and his wife, as they have an important conversation. It's a quiet, domestic scene, and Paul nailed the emotions behind it, the interaction of these two characters.

"The Fugitoid is an early creation of Mr. Eastman and Mr. Laird, pre-dating even the Turtles," he says of the character. "In the original continuity, he was a scientist named Professor Honeycutt who becomes trapped in a robot body and finds himself on the run from intergalactic factions. Eventually he hooks up with the Turtles and hijinks ensue!

"In the IDW continuity, Dr. Honeycutt is working for Krang before deciding to defect. The new IDW continuity is focused so strongly on family and moral questions of right and wrong, the proper use of violence and peace and how to do the right thing in such an imperfect world. Our new iteration of Dr. Honeycutt fits into these themes quite well."

"!We seem to have been getting generally positive reactions," says Paul of the book, which marks only his latest foray into US comics, having also worked on the Men of War mini-series for DC Comics.

Paul McCaffrey graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic (as was) with a BA in graphic design. Since then, he's mainly worked in the area of children's educational illustration, so he's done a lot of work you'll never see for books you've never heard of. Some of this can be seen on his web site or or his agent's web site.

Over the past few years, his comic strip work has appeared in UK indie titles such as Omnivistascope, Violent! and Zombies Vs Robots: Adventure. When he's not scribbling away, he makes music with The Phase 4). (Also atwww.last.fm/music/The+Phase+4).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles digital comics are now available to fans outside of the US, including the UK, Australia, the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey), Ireland and New Zealand.

The comics will be available in the TMNT Comics app, the IDW Comics app, Comics by comiXology apps for iOS and Android, or online at read.idwpublishing.com

Friday, 7 September 2012

by Archie Goodwin & Walter SimonsonPublisher: Titan BooksOut: NowThe Book:
Two of comics greatest talents joined forces in 1979 to
bring Ridley Scott's epic Alien motion picture to comics. Out of print
for over thirty years, this brand new edition has been meticulously restored from original artwork in Walt Simonson's studio presenting for the very first time the
definitive artists edition of the greatest sci-fi horror ever.

The Review: There are some books that I've kept for years, partly because they are great books and partly because there's some specific memory attached to them. Then there are the few that remain part of my library simply because, for me, they're the very best a certain genre offers.

The original Alien: The Illustrated Story is one of these, and I'm delighted British publisher Titan Books has reprinted it.

Somehow, I recall managing to read the original graphic album, published by Heavy Metal, before I saw the movie. Possibly a mistake in terms of movie enjoyment as its more memorable events (the chest-bursting over the breakfast table scene, being the most obvious) were no longer a surprize. But it's no wonder I cheated - how could you not want to read this New York Times best-selling graphic album as soon as it fell into your paws?

And it's just as I remembered it (albeit gloriously enhanced thanks to Walt's restoration). Archie Goodwin's script is, for me, still one of the best move adaptations to comics ever – no surprize given his abilities and track record – and Simonson's art is just a masterclass in visual storytelling, the tale moving at breakneck pace as Ripley and co try to defeat the near-indestructible alien.

It's no wonder the movie went on to become a successful comics line when this calibre of work went into the first Alien comics adaptation.

It's still as gripping as it was back when I first read it. Track a copy down and enjoy.

Issue 14 of the excellent Gerry Anderson series-inspired Andersonic is now available via their website (and eBay for a short period in the Collectibles>SF>Thunderbirds section).

With a cover image by Keith McNeill, the issue features the following:

Robert Easton interview - a new interview with the late Stingray voice artist (Phones, X-20) in which he discussed his time working on the series, working with Don Mason, his other radio and film work including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and his views on Stingray after over 40 years.

Terry Adlam Interview - special effects assistant on Terrahawks and Space Police and creator of Dick Spanner, Terry discusses his time working on Gerry Anderson's 1980s series... oh, and some modest productions by a bloke called George Lucas.

UFO: The Patriot - a look at this unfilmed script for UFO with recollections and comments from its writer Leo Eaton. A UFO crashes in the middle of a civil war in an African country and Straker must recover the alien pilot before his existence is revealed to the world...

Keith Miles - short Q&A with the writer of Space: 1999's 'All That Glisters' episode.

Manual Control! - a look at the genesis of the new Thunderbirds Haynes Manual.

Killed In Supermarionation - with all those guns and missiles on show, was violence handled appropriately in Century 21's puppet series? We're not so sure...

Space: 1999: The Testament of Arkadia - was it the best ending the series never had? A review of the final episode of Space: 1999's epic first series.

UFO: Mindbender - one of UFO's most memorable episodes reviewed, with a detour into the twilight zone for Ed Straker.

The issue comprises 44 pages with colour inner and outer covers and is available via the website www.andersonic.co.uk - price £2.15 including UK postage. It's also on eBay for a limited time. If you'd prefer to pay by cheque or PO, please get in touch for a postal address. Back issues are also in print.

• Why not also take a look at the publishers little sideline, Plaything of Sutekh, a Doctor Who fanzine.

Curicon, the new social network for collectors of nerd and pop culture, is offering its users the chance to win a trip to New York Comic Con this October - a prize that includes flights, accommodation and tickets to one of the biggest pop
culture conventions on the planet.

Curicon offers a colossal library of over 250,000 collectibles and the site provides features which are desperately needed by online collectors and shares a passion for collectibles and a social community platform connect collectors by their interests all around the world.

• Comic fans in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand or Mexico can enter the competition here on curicon.com

Actor Karl Urban may be the new Judge Joseph Dredd now -- but in the past he has been associated with another British originated comic strip.

Wendyhas been called Britain's last girls adventure comic and the reason that most people haven't heard of it is because while the Wendy comic strip is written and produced in the UK, it isn't published here. Wendy is a popular and much merchandised German comic that is a co-production between Egmont and DC Thomson and tells of the adventures of a horse riding teenager, Wendy Thorsteeg, and her family and friends at her family's stables. There are more details of the comic over on Bear Alley.

If Germany isn't quite far enough away for you, in the mid 1990s New Zealand television produced and broadcast a live action television series based on the comic strip which they called Riding Highand in which they rechristened the characters with less Germanic names, Wendy Thorsteeg becoming Wendy Thorburn. You are unlikely to have heard of it as Riding High has not apparently been screened in the UK, although it has been screened in the Republic of Ireland.

However when Riding High was bought and dubbed for broadcast in Germany, the 65 half hour episodes were rechristened Wendy, the characters given their original names back and it is those German episodes that are prevalent on You Tube.

The young Karl Urban (in blue in the back row above) was a regular in the series as James Westwood/Jerry Kiesemann, the boyfriend of Wendy played by Marama Jackson, and so was riding horses long before he ever rode a Lawmaster.

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Game makers in the North of England are trying to drum up interest in a new gaming festival in Rossendale, offering an event that will feature appearances by artists and writers alongside animators, developers, games companies and othersIt's hoped the Halo Festival of Games and Animation will not only provide a platform for game makers in the UK but will also help give the local towns of Haslingden and Rawtenstall in Rossendale a revenue-boosting jolt in the arm when the crowds turn up for the event.

A recent feature added to the area is Halo: a panopticon sculpture that sits on a hill and can be seen from miles
around. It’s meant to be a symbol of regeneration for the area but has
proven to be more of a whipping boy for disaffected residents who resent
all the money spent on it... no matter where the money came from.

Those trying to organise the game event argue it's a perfect backdrop for the event and could reintroduce Halo as a
positive symbol again.

So, what would happen at the Festival?

Local and international games companies will introduce their latest releases.

Game designers will host workshops and discussion groups.

Video Games Voice actors will showcase their craft.

Illustrators and Animators will demonstrate drawing techniques.

Writers will give storyline/scripting lessons.

Business savvy Games companies will tell you how to raise funds and gain grants.

And Marketing people will show you how to sell them.

Cosplay Live Action Role players will perform beneath The Halo.

Games buy and swap market.

There are people
in place for every aspect of what's described above, including a writer who has worked for DC and Marvel Comics, a cartoonist from Warner Bros who has worked
on Daffy Duck, a voice Actor from Dragon Age, support from www.gamevoices.co.uk and www.worldgamingexecutives.com and managers from a number of
the world's leading developers and publishers and much much more.

The wait is almost over:DREDD 3D hits cinema screens in the UK this Friday, and to celebrate 2000AD Prog 1799 comes with a zarjaz DREDD movie cover, showing Karl Urban as the grimacing lawman of the future.

Inside, in the aftermath of Day of Chaos how far will the Judges go to
regain control of Mega-City One? The plan has far reaching consequences
for Judge Dredd in "Innocent" by Rob Williams and Laurence Campbell.

It
looks like Lenny's band of renegades have pulled off the heist of the
century -- but will his crew stay true in "Lenny Zero Zero's Seven" by Andy
Diggle and Ben Willsher?

Meanwhile, sticking together could be the only
key to victory in Tharg's Thrillers Presents "15" by Tom Taylor and Jon
Davis-Hunt.

Also, "Aquila: Blood of The Inceni" by Gordan Rennie and Leigh
Gallagher ends in battle and blood; while Ichabod goes against the grain
in "The Grevious Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead left in his
Wake): Manhunt" by Rob Williams and Dom Reardon.

And if that isn't enough thrill power for you in one day, how about a motion comic prequel to the DREDD movie? Here you go then...

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

The Comics Forum has published the first in a series of articles about the short works of Alan Moore over on its blog. This series, cheekily entitled ‘Rummaging Around in Alan Moore’s Shorts’ has been guest edited by Maggie Gray, and comprises a wonderful selection of pieces on a wide variety of subjects.

The series will be presented on the blog over the month of September; you can make sure you don’t miss any of the articles by checking http://comicsforum.org regularly, or by subscribing to their RSS feed or email subscription service.

As always, any comments are welcome.

Comics Forum was established in 2009 as part of Leeds’ annual sequential art festival Thought Bubble, which takes place at various venues across the city every November. Taking the festival’s emphasis upon the educational value of comics as its starting point, Comics Forum aims to increase the visibility and accessibility of comics scholarship through an academic conference that brings together scholars, artists and fans in a spirit of mutual cooperation and development.

British publisher Haynes is following up its successful fictional guides to the workings of Thunderbirds and Wallace & Gromit with a Dan Dare Spacefleet Operations Manual, written by Rod Barzilay with illustrations by Graham Bleathman.

Set for release next June, this innovative Haynes Manual will take a detailed look inside the spaceships, space stations and various other craft that played such a huge part in bringing the excitement of space travel to the Dan Dare stories featured in Eagle.

Beautifully illustrated with cutaway artwork by Graham Bleathman and supported by fabulous contemporary comic-strip art, Haynes tells us this will be "the ultimate technical guide to the spaceships of Dan Dare and a wonderful addition to every comic fan’s bookshelf".

The book includes:

An introduction by Dan Dare and brief history of world government

New discoveries, including cutaways of impulse drive and gravity motors

Spacefleet and civilian spacecraft, including cutaways of all major craft

Bases, space stations and defence craft, including Spacefleet HQ

Alien craft including the Mekon's craft and feature on Dan Dare's own ship, the Anastasia

New drive systems and what the future holds

Rod Barzilay will of course be well known to many downthetubes readers as the fouding editor of the Dan Dare-inspired comic magazine Spaceship Away, while Graham Bleathman's art has graced a huge range of newspapers and magazines, from cutaways of Thunderbirds and other Gerry Anderson craft to the workings of Walford's famous square from EastEnders.

Monday, 3 September 2012

(via GOSH London): In a fast-paced, self-contained adventure, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill will be expanding on Janni Dakkar, one of their most memorable characters created for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century in Nemo: Heart of Ice next year.

Venturing into dazzling polar territories and fictional domains
including those of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, the story, due for release in February 2013, is being touted as and "unforgettable encounter at the living, beating and appallingly inhuman heart of ice".

It’s 1925 - and fifteen long years since Janni Dakkar (aka 'Pirate Jenny') first tried to
escape the legacy of her science-pirate father, only to eventually take
on his mantle and accept her destiny as the new Nemo; the next captain
of the legendary Nautilus.

A 30-year-old Pirate Jenny, tired of
punishing the world with an unending spree of plunder and destruction, now resolves to finally step from her forebear’s lengthy shadow by
attempting something at which he’d conspicuously failed, namely the
exploration of Antarctica.

In 1895, her father had returned from that
ice-crusted continent without his reason or his crewmen, all of whom
appeared to have mysteriously perished or to otherwise have disappeared.
Now Captain Nemo’s daughter and successor plans to take her feared and
celebrated black submersible back to the world’s South Pole in an
attempt to lay her sire’s intimidating ghost forever.

There are others, though, who have become as tired of Janni’s
freebooting as she herself. An influential publishing tycoon,
embarrassed by the theft of valuables belonging to a visiting Ugandan
monarch, sets a trio of America’s most lauded technological adventurers
on the pirate queen’s trail, commencing a nightmarish chase across the
frozen landscape with the pinnacles of the forbidding mountains where
Prince Dakkar’s sanity had foundered growing ever nearer…

Titan Books have confirmed Johnny Red Volume 3: Angels over Stalingrad, the final Joe Colquhoun collection, will be published in January 2013. The volume features a third introduction by comics writer Garth Ennis about Stalingrad.

The publishers of the Charley's War collections also tell us more British comics collections are on their way, which is welcome news. More news as we get it!

War is a dirty business... so who better than criminals to fight it? When Major Taggart breaks four military convicts out of jail, they think they’re headed for Easy Street... but they couldn’t be more wrong. Before, they were scum -- now, they’re the Rat Pack!

Major Eazy Volume 1: Heart of Iron is also on sale now. Drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, Major Eazy is a maverick soldier in a dirty war, caught up in the Allies' invasion of Italy in 1944 and determined to see justice done. Even when that means taking on villains on his own side, he doesn't pull any punches!

More movie star than military, Eazy was the most laconic and indeed British officer ever to grace the pages of a comic. This volume starts from the very beginning of his story.

Major Eazy 2, the second and final volume, will be out next year, and will collect the 'origins' arc set in Africa, plus the remaining strip from the series.

The series editor tells us he hasn't decided if Titan will collect the Rat Pack vs Major Eazy material yet, but it definitely won't be appearing in this book - but it will feature an interview with Major Eazy artist Carlos Ezquerra, who drew most of the series stories.

When The Rainbow Orchid creator Garen Ewing began writing and drawing his ligne clair style Adventures Of Julius Chancer in Jason Cobley’s small press BAM! black and white anthology in 2002, he would have hardly have expected that a decade later The Rainbow Orchid trilogy of books would be available to buy in colour in both British and Dutch editions with French and Spanish versions in the works.

With the three individual books now collected and released in the United Kingdom as The Complete Rainbow Orchid omnibus, Jeremy Briggs talked to Garen about his work and the future of his characters.

downthetubes: The artwork and story style of The Rainbow Orchid would suggest that you grew up on Tintin books. What comics did you read and enjoy as a child and which ones do you like now?

Garen Ewing: Yes, Asterix and Tintin were the mainstays, in fact the obsessions, of my childhood, and they still remain my favourite comics. I also read various humour weeklies, such as The Dandy and Whizzer & Chips, but I preferred adventure comics - The Victor, Tiger, Warlord, Battle, and later 2000AD. I was also a big Oor Wullie fan thanks to my Scottish grandmother. As my teens approached I moved onto Warrior, which I loved.

Currently I'm enjoying the greater availability of European comics in English, especially Blake & Mortimer and Yoko Tsuno - both of which I'd had the 1980s Comcat editions before - and Leo's Aldebaran series. As well as the Cinebook range, books from NBM (love the two Miss Don't Touch Me volumes) and Fantagraphics (especially the Tardi and Tillieux reprints). I'm really looking forward to Bryan Talbot's third Grandville album and also catching up with the more recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books.

DTT: Where did the original idea of The Rainbow Orchid come from?

Garen: As far as the story goes I think it originated in my research for what was initially going to be a Victorian vampire tale, and looking into that era's obsession with orchid collecting. That, amalgamated with my love of classic lost world adventure stories by such authors as Rider Haggard and Jules Verne. Add a dash of Franco-Belgian graphics and we're there!

DTT: How much has it changed over the years from your initial concept?

Garen: Hardly at all as far as the plot goes, I pretty much kept to my original plan. Quite a few details changed, as they must, and the character of Meru was a bit of a surprise to me - he just popped up, but plays a major part.

DTT: Now that The Complete Rainbow Orchid is available, how would you 'sell it' to someone who hasn't yet bought one of the individual books?

Garen: Probably the best shorthand, courtesy of a friend's description, is it's Tintin meets Indiana Jones only a bit more cerebral. I'd like to hope that it's the kind of story you can settle down with on a Sunday afternoon, a mug of tea at your side, and get totally lost in for an hour or two. It's 1398 panels of pure adventure, good for kids and adults alike.

DTT: You have recently had several strips in The Phoenix comic. Can you tell us a little about them and if they will continue?

Garen: I was the illustrator on two of Ben Haggarty's Silk Roads strips, The Legend of the Golden Feather (left) in issue 1, and a four-parter, The Bald Boy and the Dervish, a few months later, both Arabian Nights-type tales and great fun to do. I'm not sure if I'll be doing any more of those, but I will be doing something for The Phoenix again at some point, if plans work out.

DTT: What's next for Rainbow Orchid's Julius Chancer character?

Garen: I'm writing the next Julius Chancer adventure now. I don't want to give too much away this early on, but I can say it involves a stage magician, a ruined seventeenth-century house, an uncharted island and an ornate wooden box.

DTT: Thank-you for taking the time to talk to us.

There are more details of The Rainbow Orchid on Garen's Rainbow Orchid website which includes a shop with badges, t-shirts and signed and sketched copies of the books available.

Sunday, 2 September 2012

The Johnny Red strip created by writer Tom Tully and artist Joe Colquhoun began in Battle Picture Weekly and Valiant in January 1977. It told the story of a young disgraced British fighter pilot who took off from a CAM ship to protect his Arctic Convoy against German attack before flying this Hurricane fighter to Russia where he joined the Red Air Force's Falcon Squadron.

This origin story for the character of Johnny Red was based on a real incident in World War II that occurred during the PQ18 convoy. That convoy is being commemorated today at Loch Ewe in Scotland by the Russian Arctic Convoy Museum Project.

Seventy years ago today PQ18 set out from Loch Ewe headed on the Arctic route for Archangel in the USSR. PQ18's predecessor, PQ17, had been attacked repeatedly by German forces and lost 24 of its 35 merchant ships, a devastating 68% loss rate. PQ18 was more heavily protected and part of that protection was the CAM ship SS Empire Morn.

Catapult Armed Merchantmen (CAM) were civilian ships fitted with a rocket powered catapult to launch a single Hurricane fighter into the air to protect the convoy from enemy attack. The CAM pilots were a special breed as in the middle of the Arctic Ocean they had nowhere to land their plane once they ran out of ammunition and fuel and so their choices were either bail out into the freezing ocean or crash land in the water and, assumed that they survived that, try to get out of the plane before it sank. Unsurprisingly most chose to bail out.

At 11.50 a.m. local time on 18 September 1942 Flying Officer Arthur Burr of the RAF Volunteer Reserve was launched in his Hurricane against 15 Luftwaffe Heinkel HE111 torpedo bombers. He shot one down and caused another to crash and none of the convoys ships were hit by their torpedoes. With no ammunition but a lot of fuel left he decided to attempt landfall at the nearest airfield, the Soviet Keg Ostrov aerodrome 240 miles due south. Remarkably, despite flying into fog in a plane with no radar, he made it to the aerodrome and became the only CAM pilot ever to save his aircraft after a combat launch. Arthur Burr was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions that day and 28 of the 40 PQ18 merchant ships made it to Arkangel, a 70% survival rate which turned PQ17's 68% loss rate on its head.

In Battle's version of the incident Convoy PQ18 became Convoy XQ14, the SS Empire Morn became the SS Empire Cape and Arthur Burr became Johnny 'Red' Redburn who, unlike Burr who returned to Britain with his aircraft and ship, remained in the Soviet Union to fight the Germans alongside his new comrades and went on to become one of the weekly comic's most popular characters.

The site downthetubes.net, which began publishing in 1999, is edited by John Freeman whose credits include editor of Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, Star Wars Magazine, and Marvel UK titles such as Overkill, Death's Head II, Warheads and others. He's currently editor of the upcoming Strip Magazine for Print Media Productions.

About the Writers:

• Matthew Badham has written features for Judge Dredd: The Megazine, the Forbidden Planet International blog and more

• Jeremy Briggs contributes news, reviews, interviews and historical articles on British comics. He is a guest writer on Steve Holland's UK comics history blog, Bear Alley, and has written for Comics International, TV Zone, Spaceship Away and Omnivistascope.

• David Hailwood has written comic strips for various publications, including TOXIC, Accent UK, Bulletproof and Futurequake. He also writes comedy material for TV, and regularly contributes to the Temple APA (a showcase for UK comic writers and artists).

• Andy Luke is a writer who draws: he's s created the eponymous Andy Luke's Comic Book, Gran, Absence: a comic about epilepsy, Hold the Phones, It's Alex Jones, and graphic novel, The Watch Thief. He's written about comics too, mainly for Bugpowder.com, and has been involved with the Caption comics festival in Oxford. He currently lives in Belfast with a large box of pasta and a 7ft tall cigarette, and can be found online at http://andy-luke.com and http://awriterwhodraws.com

• Ian Wheeler is a freelance writer who also edited the highly-acclaimed British comics fanzine Eagle Flies Again.